(BBC) – Some 70,000 people have fled their homes in a remote part of southern Ethiopia, after a deadly conflict broke out between rival groups – apparently triggered by the construction of a new borehole. The BBC’s Elizabeth Blunt has been to visit the affected areas.
Wamo Boru and his family used to live in Kafa, one of the many small ethnic Borana communities scattered across the arid borderlands of southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya.
The hard red earth shows through the thin grass of the sun-baked landscape, a wide expanse of thorny scrub, flat-topped thorn-trees and tall red anthills.
The Borana lead a hard life, especially in the past year or two, when rains have been poor.
But the community had its livestock – cattle and camels and goats – and was expecting to have a better water supply when the Oromia regional government finished work on a new borehole in the area.
But at the beginning of February they had – quite literally – a rude awakening.
“It was nine o’clock at night, we were sleeping when we were fired at,” said Wamo.
“We just had to jump from our sleep and protect ourselves. Because it was night, we didn’t see who was attacking us, but we think they were the people called Gherri from Somali regional state.
“They came on foot, without vehicles, but they had bombs and missile launchers, and at that time we didn’t have guns, only sticks to defend ourselves.”
Wamo, his family and neighbours fled with just the clothes they stood up in.
They managed to bring some of their stronger livestock with them, but they had to leave the weaker ones behind to be taken by the raiders.
Now they are camped close to the dirt road that runs east from Yabelo, the administrative headquarters of Ethiopia’s Borana zone.
Wareba, the village teacher, is there too; he lost one of his in-laws in the raid.
“This was a war no-one was prepared for,” he says.
“That was how the Somalis could come and destroy so much.”
The children he used to teach are scattered across the area, and, he says, “not in good condition”.
Wamo says three members of their community died during the attack, another seven were badly injured.
Their community is now just another group of displaced people – 2,000 of them among nearly 70,000 estimated to have been driven from their homes by the fighting.
Jealousy
This part of Ethiopia has a long history of conflict, cattle raiding and fights over water and grazing among its various pastoral communities.
But this, says Wamo, was different from other wars.
“They came and fought us at night,” he says. “It was not a warrior-like war.”
He attributes the attack to jealousy over the scheme to dig a new borehole.
“They didn’t want us to live well, and water is very important to us, so they attacked our water source.”
The emergency-response officer from the local administration, Mohamed Nur, agrees that it was an unusual conflict.
“This went to a very large scale,” he said.
“It affected a huge number of people from both sides. In past conflicts, communities would fight, but they wouldn’t destroy government property, like the drilling rig.”
An attack on the new borehole may have started the fighting, but the causes are deep rooted.
The water scheme was close to the dividing line between two of Ethiopia’s ethnically-based regional states – Oromia and Somali regions – a boundary which has never been properly demarcated.
The Oromo regional government thought it was drilling the borehole on its own territory; people in Somali region thought it was on their side of the boundary.
When Somalis destroyed the rig, the Borana mobilised to take revenge, angry at what they saw as years of Somali encroachment.
“The Somalis are problematic people,” said one Borana politician from the Moyale area, Guyo Halake Liban.
“They are always pushing us. It’s as if I give you a place to pitch your tent and the following morning you are telling me to leave; the Borana are not accepting that.
“These people have pushed the Borana from very, very far places. I don’t think the Borana are willing to move an inch from where they are any more.”
Stockpiling weapons
Like all pastoralists in this part of the world, Borana men habitually go armed to defend their flocks.
When they fought back, there were pitched battles in the area. More than 300 people are thought to have died.
Humanitarian workers like Mohamed Nur are now dealing with the consequences.
6 thoughts on “Ethnic clash in southern Ethiopia leaves 70,000 homeless”
Woyanne trying to arms Somali people to start conflict between Oromo and Somali.
I am not one to jump to conclusions but this “conflict” smells rotten to me. Woyanne’s primary goal is to create havoc and incite ethnic conflicts all over Ethiopia so they can rule over the poor people Ethiopia while they are at each other’s throats. ONLF and OLF need to step up and put a stop to the people who are being used as Woyanne tools in stoking ethnic conflicts. The people of Ethiopia have lived in peace for millenia, no one benefits from these manufactured ethnic conflicts, but once these conflicts erupt and cool heads don’t prevail, they can spiral out of control, giving Melles the prize he is looking for.
That`s the shameful and the sadistic project of the TPLF for the people of Ethiopia-set them against each other and watch.Somalis and Boranas or Oromas are life-long friends who always lived side by side without any problems until the Woyannes came along.The Boranas and my Gherri community should realise that they are not the enemy and they should make peace among themselves.
It’s time to topple the tyrant Zenawi. We cannot allow a divide-and-rule strategy to be imposed upon our people.
Searching for peace!
In the old days, if a conflict about land or water arises between two tribes, the other tribe who is very concerned about the well-being of his own tribe will say to the next tribe: “If you go left, I will go right. If you go east, I will go west. If your servants take the well I dug for my cattle, I will dig another one; therefore, let us part company in peace.”
However, in Ethiopia, a minor conflict like the one between the Borena tribes and the Kefa tribes will not be solved quickly before it has forced more than 70,000 people to leave their homes and properties behind, and before some people have lost even their precious lives.
To tell the truth, I’m afraid that a small clash like this one may lead to another big clash that will bring the destruction and total annihilation of one tribe if all the other different tribes come together and attack the existing ruling party – the Tigray tribe.
After one tribe, the ruling party, is completely destroyed, then one concerned Ethiopian from the Oromo, Amhara, or from any other tribe, will say solemnly “… why has this happened” to us? “Why should one tribe be missing from” Ethiopia “today?” It is then too late to mourn on a lost tribe, but it will not be too late not to repeat the same mistake – coming together to accomplish one goal – to attack one tribe and destroy it root and branch.
Once the common goal is achieved in a violent way, then the rest of the world will rehearse the word “genocide” to indict the Oromo, the Amhara, the Ogaden, and the other tribes who conspired and joined together and destroyed the Tigrean tribe. However, no Amhara or Oromo tribe will take any responsibility for the disappearances of the Tigrean tribe from all over Ethiopia but those in diaspora as Meles Seitanawi has refused to take responsibilities for the arbitrary killings of those innocent Ethiopian martyrs on that fateful month, May 7, 2005.
When the dust is settled down and the few remnants of the Tigrean people put in jail if not given to a sword, the Wolkait-Tegedie, the Semen-Armacheho, and the Waldiba Monastery will regain their lost territories to the Abay Tigre.
Nevertheless, the land of Tigre will still remain there, free of the criminal Tigreans. Of course, some desperate Amhara and Oromo people may try to sow salt on the Tigrean soil, never to grow any vegetation, but the other compassionate tribe will intervene and prevent this catastrophic plan to sterilize the Tigrean land.
In reality, will those tribes who allied themselves and destroyed the Tigreans will also stay together to build Ethiopia, or will they go their own ways, grabbing a piece of land from here and a piece of land from there and proclaim themselves landlords and start fighting each other?
I hope there will be a common understanding between the tribes who defeated Meles and his unique tribe to quickly establish a democratic government that unites Ethiopia and looks at Eretria and Somalia as friends of Ethiopia, not its enemies.
Every where in Ethiopia, the ethnics fire is burning and destroying thousends of lifes and unaccountable amounts of properties. It is the criminal work of TPLF’s hidden ant-Ethiopia which is annilating our innocent peasants lifes. ” Gerigir le leba yimechal ” this situation will serve the Woyanes to rob the Ethiopian peoples more and more. And where are those so called LIBERATION FRONTS when this happened ?